


Paper Boats

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Heartache, Love, Love defines everything here, M/M, Motorcycles, Swordfighting, Transistor AU, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-12 00:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Keith awakens to a loss he had never contemplated. And now, he has to find a way to salvage not just his life, but the city he once called home.Altea is inconsistent. A city of dreams that shift as easily as the wind over the shore. But it has never been a city of loss.Hey, Red. . .He breathes out. His hand shakes. Nothing changes.We’re not going to get away with this, are we?





	Paper Boats

**Author's Note:**

> This had been created some time ago, and I figured at this point it was worth putting up here. I don't know when I'll complete this AU, but I do have some strong feelings and love for Transistor, and how well it fits into the Sheith story. Now, rather than putting the boys directly into the Transistor world, as had been the original intent, this is a revised world, a Transistor-inspired Altea, keeping true to the game dynamics and its story. When the original request had been made of this story, it was that some of the dialogue from the original game remained intact, which I tried to honor, while giving this Transistor story a Voltron spin. Consider it a merging of the two! Tags will be updated when the story progresses, and as such, game spoilers are to be expected.
> 
>    
> And as always, feel free to come yell at me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bymidnightflame)!

Altea is a city of whims. Blink, and you might miss the soft orange glow of dawn traded for the purples of encroaching night. In the time it took for an afternoon nap, a new roadway might have erupted out of the cityscape, spanning the Arusian Bay with a dazzle of lights. Tired of the spring rain? Breathe, and by the next inhale, the clouds will have been swept from the sky, no more concern for them than for the remnants of ash from a cigarette. If there is one thing to be said for Altea and its populace, it’s that inconsistency is the most consistent thing about it. And all it takes is a vote in the daily poll.

One could say that much of his adult life had been dictated by those polls. Including his rise to fame. The only thing it hadn’t prepared him for is this. 

Altea is inconsistent. A city of dreams that shift as easily as the wind over the shore. But it has never been a city of loss.

_Hey, Red. . ._

He breathes out. His hand shakes. Nothing changes.

_We’re not going to get away with this, are we?_

He’s been sitting here. . .God knows how long. Twilight skies (another whim, that prelude to night, dancing with the first glimmer of stars, elected as the current fad just that morning) only made the alleyway all the darker. Not dark enough, however, to keep from him the worst. His head rings, memories colliding, breaking into pieces until he doesn’t know where to begin to put it all back into proper order again. It’s like having all the parts of a puzzle and yet no notion of what the image itself is supposed to look like. Where does someone even start? 

Does he even want to try?

Because every time he looks across from him, he feels this nameless ache crawling up from his core, and he knows what it wants, what it will do to him. A huff of laughter hits the air from a voice far too familiar. The ache inside yowls in response. What he wants is to curl up, to lose himself to the dream of something that isn’t this. 

There’s no poll in all of Altea that could rectify this though. He knows that, just as he knows there are some things you don’t always come back from. Not in the same way at least. But that knowledge does nothing to console the ache eating away at his heart, this thing that consumes and consumes, relentless in its appetite. Grief is a voracious creature; only Keith isn’t sure who exactly he is mourning for.

Himself? Maybe.

But it’s so much more than that.

_Keith. . ._

He jerks at the sound of his name. The same familiar voice, coated in concern, warming some part in the very depths of him that still remembers better than this current moment. His fingers curl around a device, a Bayard. Its name hadn’t been spoken, but Keith knew it the moment he had wrapped his hand around it. 

An oddly shaped thing, unlike anything he had ever seen before. Like the letter ‘D’, only the curve has a gap opened in the center of it, and where it should have ended upon meeting the straight-backed line holding it together, the ends continue to extend out on either side of it. The bar, which his fingers are currently clutching, is a matte black; the extended lines of the curve, flaring out past the bar and back toward his wrist, are white with the same black rounding around its lower edges. Another band of white runs along the center of the curve on either side, and crowing the top, a different sort of black. Darker, deeper, with a fine gloss to it that makes it shine. If he tilts it just right, it’s like catching the promise of starlight in the deep of space. 

It’s one of two things he had taken from the body slumped across from him. After the initial horror had faded, and his heart had regained his chest, and the pain had lessened to a dull relentless echo in that place all great loves are held within us. . .He doesn’t know how long he’d been sitting here though, his gaze unable to pull itself from the figure across from him.

Completely lifeless. Eyes shut, fingers unmoving. Far too familiar. An existence that had once walked this city, had had a world (his world) all its own filled with dreams still waiting to be realized. Because we never stop dreaming, not really. Keith knows this, and it only makes that ache ravaging his heart howl out in frustrated anger. There had been a life here once. But now. . .now what? His eyes drift over the figure, lingering on the streak of white staining the man’s bangs, like a moment erased from the timeline of universal existence. Glaring white against the black of his hair, against the shadows crawling over his body. Maybe those are what would take him in the end - the black nothing of a world Keith cannot yet go. The shadows are merely the messengers of what’s to come.

Nothingness.

_Together again. . .sort of._

There’s wry humor in those words. Keith finds himself smiling down at the Bayard, the ache now wrapping itself around his heart. A blanket of loss, comforting but no less painful to bear. Another moment goes by, only to be filled seconds later by a puff of laughter that makes Keith doubt the reality of everything before him. 

_Sorry. The silence was getting to me. What a night though, huh?_

The image of a smile greets Keith. Self-aware of its own poor sense of humor but not the least bit apologetic for it. Something like a sob breaks apart in his throat, rendered soundless by the time it reaches his lips. His fingers tighten around the Bayard.

_You’re still in one piece. . .that’s all that matters._ Another pause, heavier this time. Keith feels the weight of it, pressing down over him. But the hand that would have reassured him, strong and certain in its grip over his shoulder, doesn’t come. There’s only another spill of words, more steel than comfort. _You should get going, Keith._

His shoulders drop. His thoughts go with it. Everything is empty inside. . .everything except for that space in his chest that burns like a farewell pyre. Keith imagines smoke signals blowing up into his lungs. Maybe that’s the stuff that’s clotting up his breath.

Maybe it’s just that he’s forgotten what exactly is worth breathing for.

Lips move, forming a single word, but no sound comes out. He tries again, but silence steals the name from him. His mouth crumples into a frown; his vision blurs. Even if he wanted to sob, no one would hear him. 

_I can’t help you here. Not anymore. At least, not like I used to. But we’ll figure this out. . .I’m still here. And so are you. That means we can still do something._

He nods at that and pushes himself to his feet.

_Little big on you, don’t you think?_

It’s the fondness warming that question that hits him the hardest. In the same way misjudging your grip leads to you dropping a mug full of honey-sweetened tea. And there it is, shattered remnants of what you had thought to enjoy, had memories of enjoying, just waiting there to scald your skin and slice across fingertips. Keith tugs on the sleeves of the jacket, the other thing he had taken from the man slumped against the wall. It’s black leather, heavy over his limbs. Etched in silver, a stylized V-shape runs across the back. Keith had always thought it glowed like starlight. Even on the darkest of Altean nights, he could always find it.

And once he did, a smile never failed followed, and his name uttered with all the soft sincerity of a heart in love. 

He shrugs at the question and rolls up the sleeves. To make his point. The jacket stayed with him. 

_Maybe you’ll grow into it._

Keith glares down at the Bayard. As laughter filters from the device, the glittering black along its top lights up, casting a purple glow around it. He huffs out, then gives his head a shake. 

_Let’s get going._

Another nod. One more exhale. But something tethers him to this place, for just a moment longer. He reaches out and brushes his fingers through the man’s hair, along his cheek, the skin offering only a pale reminder of the warmth that had once held it. Keith swallows down the knot that had formed in his throat, forcing it into his chest where it rattles around, knocking against his heart indiscriminately. The Bayard is oddly quiet, but Keith thinks he gets it. Some things you simply don’t have the words to express. Sometimes, words just aren’t enough, but silence can roar with emotion. Another sigh moves soundlessly over his lips before they twist into a tight line, damming up every word of frustration Keith wishes he could voice.

He shakes his head and turns towards the opening of the alley. For all that patience might earn him, he knows that nothing much has ever been achieved by dwelling on matters he could no longer help. You get to the point where you have to move or be forever mired in the tar pit of your own making. Keith has always been someone who took whatever steps he could, even if the motion carried him a few jumps backward to reconsider his role, his place in all of this. At this moment, however, he’s not sure how much of any of that - his old life - still exists. There’s only one way to find out. . .

The alley opens onto one of the many wide streets crisscrossing their way across Altea. Soft blue light filters from the lampposts, ornate things made of bronze with filigree leaf-work around their glass cases. Nature finds its way into the city in manufactured forms. Buildings that rise high into the sky, their brickwork etched with vines, giving the impression of greenery. About as lifelike as one can make it without utilizing the real thing. Metalwork trees with thin silver leaves, brilliant as moon glow beneath the blue lights, rustle in the wind and give off a pleasant chiming sound. That’s not to say Altea is without any honest flora or fauna. Those exist in carefully curated squares, one of which Keith has rather fond memories of.

Memories, however, aren’t going to salvage what’s left of his life. 

_I’ve never seen the streets so empty. Be careful, all right?_

It’s an eerie sort of desolation that haunts Altea now. Nothing is out of place, not a single cobble in the streets nor door sign over the shops. To his left, a neon purple cat flashes its tail back and forth over a doorway. _Beta Traz_ , Altea’s infamous pub. Instead of raucous laughter and the deafening notes screamed from guitars and drum sets alike, there’s only the cat, swishing its tail, beckoning those whose curiosity would get the better of them. Music or death, its most loyal patrons would yell into the street, startling the midnight hour.

There’s no music now. Keith is left to wonder if death finally got them.

He rounds another corner, leaving the pub and its empty underground hall behind. The lights flicker. Instinct screeches its warnings inside of his mind. Slowing his walk, Keith swings his head around and sees nothing. Another of Altea’s streets, lined with its clean-cut buildings butting up against one another like a nation’s immaculately formed military ranks unfolding themselves before the throne. All of it leads towards the city center, where the entertainment district stood, the great heart of Altea. That’s what people lived for here: the thrill of another life. Whether lived vicariously through a concert or play put on at the Crystal Set or at the Vox raceway, a large arena where motorcyclists jockeyed for a win, Altea’s populace voted, and they received whatever narrative suited their fancies that week. 

_Careful, Keith. Looks like they’ve found us already._

Keith tries to take several steps back as a cluster of black crystalline structures breaks out of the ground. Instead, he finds himself up against a barrier, invisible, save for the purple line flowing around the perimeter of whatever field it has currently started to designate. Purpose unknown. He pushes against it and sees that it remains as unforgiving as Time itself. 

Several more crystals pop up, each pulsing with faint lavender light, always with a handful to their arrangement. Most consist of various sizes, the smallest no taller than his knees, the largest standing just over his head, though a rare few are singular entities, large and imposing. Their growth seems sporadic, but for now, confined. Yet all of it so completely out of touch with the favored white, silver, and gold of Altea’s streets that it takes Keith several seconds to register the complete wrongness of his situation.

_I bet they want you back. . ._

They. Keith has a pretty good idea who is being alluded to, but before he can pull together their images in his mind, a creature drags itself out from one of the crystals. Inch by inch, it materializes, an obscenity birthed from the darkness. Triangular in structure. Solid metal. It floats in the air several feet from where Keith stands. There’s a glimmering blackness to its surface that reflects the light from the lamps lining the street, seeming to absorb it. Not unlike a black hole. After another moment of standing there, contemplating this new creature, Keith swears the area had grown darker. 

_Look familiar to you?_

It does. The moment it turns and focuses it single round red eye on him, Keith recognizes what it is. Or what it had been based on. Rover. An experimental surveillance unit that had first had its origins in recording the various performances at the Crystal Set. Unobtrusive. Easy to manipulate. Accurate in its recordings. It had been the side project of Altea’s most renowned engineer, Katie “Pidge” Holt. She had affectionately referred to the machine as her pet, and most of Altea had fallen for the line, considering it the cutest must-have accessory of the last two months. Developments had been underway to make it smaller. Pidge had insisted on postponing the release of the devices until she could further refine them. Though, rumors had it that she had been trying to find a way to keep them from being used to monitor the citizens of Altea. 

Rover’s eye flashes a brilliant crimson that bathes Keith in light. Seconds later, an electric pulse skewers his body. The Bayard glows silver as if reacting to his pain. No sooner does the light fade does Keith find a sword in his hand. Nearly half his body length, weighted as all death-loaded devices tend to be. He heaves it up, surprised by the sudden heaviness. The Bayard itself had weighed next to nothing, no more than a feather among a whole flock. But the blade is something different as if to remind him of what he now carries. Not just the weight of his future actions, but everything that had been lost to get him here. 

_You’ve got this, Keith._

The reassurance from that familiar voice settles his nerves. He can’t help but smile, this small thing that promises there’s more to come, as he tightens his grip around the sword. With a nod of his head, he lunges forward. Rover swerves to the left, trying to spin around Keith, but at the last second, he pivots and brings the blade down in an arc over the machine. It rattles, breaking apart in mid-air, then falls to the ground in a scattering of crystal shards. The purple light that had been crawling around the perimeter of the battlefield suddenly dies, leaving only the blue lights of Altea flickering overhead. 

He thinks he gets it now. This thing. . .creature. . .machine. . .whatever it is, Keith doesn’t get to leave those barricaded areas unless one of them perishes. How had it come into existence - this shadow being of something so familiar? Like the dark side of the soul had been in control, as simple as turning a sock inside out. Had something, or _someone_ , turned its function from friendly sidekick to murder machine? Keith shakes his head. There are far too few answers to let this be the ending to his story.

All around him, the crystals still glimmer, a permanent change to the landscape. He resists the urge to reach out and touch one, feeling too much like he might lose himself, some part of his soul, to whatever brought it erupting out of the street in the first place. 

**Quintessence**.

That’s the word radiating from the weapon in his hands, filling his head in that same familiar voice, garbled by static. Transmission incomplete. That’s what it felt like - that there’s more to this, only he doesn’t have all the pieces to make the final connection. Keith glances down at the blade and heaves out a sigh. Echoing the sentiment, the sword vanishes, leaving only the Bayard behind in his hand. His grip tightens around it.

_We’re east of the bay. I think I know where we are now._

As he glances around him again, Keith realizes he’s right. They’re on the other side of town, nearly one hundred blocks away from the Crystal Set and his apartment complex. That’s where it all started. He doesn’t know if that’s where it will end, but sometimes, to move forward, you have to revisit the beginning and remember how it all went so wrong. 

That’s the thing about life. People didn’t go back to the start because they enjoyed it. They went back to try again, to pick up pieces left behind. To make sense of the world, of themselves. Because if everything went right from the start, then the future continued to unfurl itself, bright and welcoming, with every step into it. 

He cuts through a small square, surrounded by the same empty buildings, and makes his way to a stairwell. His chest still heaves slightly from his last fight, from the effort of wielding the Bayard in its secondary form, but he doesn’t pause to catch his breath there. It leads him to an elevated walkway between the buildings, with the lights barely scratching the surface of the stonework path. As darkness consumes him, the city glows all the brighter in the distance for it.

This beautiful, sky-scraper studded landscape, undaunted by the night growing ever blacker around it.

_Hello, world._

His steps start to slow. There’s something almost nostalgic about the way those words come out. Warm. Masculine. But unrelentingly kind. That’s what Keith hears in that greeting. Perhaps, it’s what he has been coming to feel for the Bayard itself. Maybe it’s what has always been there. He draws to a complete halt and looks out over the city.

Altea. A sprawling metropolis of dreams that shifted with the whims of its populace and yet never let anyone get lost.

At least, it hadn’t before.

_Hey, Keith. It’s the Crystal Set. Can you see it?_

He turns his gaze to the right and locates it. Two spires, not unlike some fairytale castle, rise out of the clutter of buildings around it, tall and translucent white. When the spotlights from below pass over them, it bathes them in gold and sets them to glittering like stars newly landed on earth and ready to shower hopes across the city. Keith knows that resting between them is the open-air stage he had called his second home. 

_We should get away from there. Let’s not leave anything to chance, all right?_

A nod of his head at that, resigned as only the Truth can bring us to be. The city falls from his view, no more than a backlit dream, as he pushes on towards Puig Promenade. In the quiet of another stairwell, Keith exhales and cradles the Bayard against his chest. It’s cold in the way that all weapons are, unyielding in form until something comes along to break it or it’s simply left to rust, forgotten. Too rigid. Too heavy. But in the silence of their descent, he clings to it.

Maybe some things will be forgotten. Maybe this world won’t remember his name or the songs he sang. Maybe that’s just the inevitable end of all things once called great.

But it doesn’t make this moment any less real.

The Promenade is lit with the same heart-lifting blues from the previous area. Gentle, as if reminding him this city has always been about its people, about their dreams. Maybe it’s why he stayed here, out of all possible places, even when his dreams took on another form, all because of its people’s wishes. Keith doesn’t hate them for that. He doesn’t even dislike them.

After all, because of them, he met -

_Head up, Keith! Something’s going on over there. . ._

A pack of Rovers. Seemingly taking their machine’s fury out on the nearby buildings. Replacing them with. . .with nothing. What had once been a broad walkway, lined with Altea’s glittering bronze trees and song-struck leaves, is now slowly being eroded with every sweep of the Rover’s red-lit gaze over it. A brick wall, the side of one of the Promenade’s shops, dances with a brilliant gold-flecked white. Pixels ripple across its surface, bathed in a pulsating glow that has no reason for existence in such a place. It’s like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel decided the wait was too long and had taken it upon itself to appear before Altea. Beside it, several windows stare at him with their dream-devouring gaze. 

Odd. Well, odder still. Perhaps that’s the way to put it.

The lights here never burned that particular shade of purple. Altea, in general, preferred the calm of green, the sighs of yellow or the gentle wash of blue (the current favorite of the last month) when it came to illuminating their city. The citizens never much cared for purple in general. But this hue. . .it's a different brand from the softer lavenders occasionally seen around the city. It’s the unfathomable sort of purple that doesn’t just put caution into your thoughts but unsettles your entire soul. A color that tells you something bigger than this world is coming.

Something darker.

Keith dispatches the Rovers, quicker than before, the Bayard growing more responsive to him with every thought, every movement. By the time the barrier dissipates, he finds himself wanting to sink into the weapon itself, to wrap himself in the sound of its voice. To redefine the idea of home in this world that seems to be breaking itself down street-by-street. Even with the Rovers gone, the wall still holds its empty glow, as if waiting for something to come along to tell it what it’s supposed to do, what it should be.

Waiting for another poll, perhaps. Speak, and it shall be done.

Above it, the windows continue to stare at him with that same purple-stained gaze. Even if he got rid of the problem, Keith doesn’t know how to fix this. He belted his heart out on a stage, he drove through the streets at (near) reckless speeds just to lose his thoughts, and he kept most of himself for the only person that had ever really mattered to him. He wasn’t an engineer. And he certainly didn’t have any architectural inclinations. 

He didn’t make worlds happen. 

_Hey, there. . .Are you okay?_

The Bayard’s voice collects his attention once more. He turns around, his eyes drawn to a figure, seemingly discarded several feet from the shop’s (belatedly Keith remembers it being a jeweler) wall. It’s as lifeless as the one Keith had woken up next to, but unlike the first, this one is partially dissolved by the same pixelated glow cutting a hole into the building standing before them. Rendered completely unrecognizable. All around it, the shadows seem intent on consuming what’s left, as if needing to fill in the vacancy inevitably left by a departure. 

Another loss in a city that never courted the concept. But unlike the first one, it doesn’t make him feel like his heart had abandoned his chest, a black-hole feeling left in its place. Devouring, but never satisfied.

_I see. . .yeah. We can do that._

Keith can’t hear anything. But he listens to the Bayard’s voice, familiar and warm, as it converses with the remains of a life that had once been. Seems to be a theme here, doesn’t it? A world with endings thrown across its streets, like the remnants of confetti after all the pomp and ceremony of a parade.

_She wants to come with us. Says she can help._

He hears that in the Bayard’s voice too - the endings. That sort of quiet understanding that comes after staring down the undefinable. We all try to make sense of the world, more so in the face of the senseless. We grasp at the things we can still do and use those moments as stars we can throw into the surrounding blackness to guide our way home. Keith hears it all in that tone, the way it holds out a hand to the lost.

_I think I can take her along with me. She says hello, by the way._

Keith bows his head towards the body, unsure of whether or not she can tell, but unwilling to let decorum drop just because of his uncertainty. Laughter flows from the Bayard, gentle, sorrowful. Trying to make the best of a not so great situation. Keith knows that sound, and it spurs on the ache in his heart.

_. . .It’s Pidge, Keith._

He blinks at that, nearly taking a step back in his surprise. Pidge. She had left her post for undisclosed reasons several weeks ago, presumably to investigate the disappearances of her two best friends. Rumors also had her chasing some as-of-yet unnamed phenomenon ghosting around the outer reaches of Altea itself, talk of warped areas that resisted all the typical repair methods and remained unresponsive to the polls. Whether the disappearances and this new scientific development had been related was never relayed to the general public. The story had been splashed all across the OKI (short for Olkarion) terminals, the very system she had helped develop, only to be swallowed by a tide of new polls on the weather and potential changes to the city itself.

He doesn’t quite understand the link-up process, of what was taken in and what precisely was left behind, but the Bayard does it instinctively and without complaint, and Keith trusts in that. (It had murmured something about _downloading_ and _just taking a second_ , like all life could be reduced to just that, re-uploads and deletions, minor data shifts and better gameplay.) But as he pushes on, he begins to think of the wall, of the windows screaming purple. All of it had been nothing more than an anomaly, like that one part of a picture that the artist forgot to fully flesh out, leaving blank spaces and unfinished lines that jarred the mind with all the wrong it took on within the Completed Whole. 

Further down the Promenade, the streets are just as before, with their glossy black-bricked walkways and glowing blue arrows always seeming to pull him toward the places he’s meant to be. There’s no gaping nothingness crawling along the buildings there, no robotic beings rushing around like militant spiders, just the quiet of a night on the city outskirts.

He presses on, the Bayard held tight in his hand, feeling just a touch heavier than before. Not as weighty as when the blade manifests, but. . .maybe he’s imagining it. Thinking too much about all the questions that still lack answers. Too much time spent in his head. 

_Keith!_

Something bright infiltrates the Bayards’s voice, a memory sparked, well loved, and lending light to the here-and-now. Keith can’t help but smile at the sound of it, though he lifts an eyebrow down at the Bayard, questioning.

_It’s you. Down there at the end of the plaza._

Shadows inhabit most of the streets down here in the lower reaches of Altea, nestled beneath the elevated crosswalks and towering architecture. Like any city, Altea isn’t without its more clandestine areas, though even those carry a charm to them. More whispered conversations, and subtle looks that ran over you more like a caress than an analyzation - that sort of charm. You’d never feel like you were walking a knife’s edge though, even in the Altean underbelly. All it really means is there’s a little more privacy in these areas, a little less likely to be found out, and lamps that pooled light on the streets so that you could hop from one to the other and be bathed in darkness with each leap. 

Fear had never defined Altea. Keith had never considered it ever could.

But now. . .

When he turns his head, there’s still a little bit of the city’s glitter and glam splashed across the far wall of the square. It’s one of the larger posters he has seen of himself, climbing up the side of a building and surrounded by smaller flyers of the same image. Him, captured at that moment before he moves in towards the microphone, with his eyes closed and his heart lifted. Silver lines crisscross in the background behind him, reminiscent of The Crystal Set’s filigreed columns. But it’s the red flaring from his performance jacket that brings the whole scene to life, as though with those first notes sung, he would be set to burn it all down in a brilliant conflagration.

They’d never know what hit them.

Keith feels his shoulders drop, and with them, the Bayard flickers a faint purple, a shudder of color over its onyx. He shuts his eyes. Suddenly there’s a mirror before him, and the smallest smile on his lips as he stares into it, adjusting the dog tags around his neck (they called it a performance accessory, Keith called it a necessity). Even in the dressing room, he can hear the growing hum of the crowd, and it sets anticipation fluttering about in his core like a trapped butterfly. 

The jacket is the last of his outfit to go on, the red leather one that had earned him his nickname. It always stood out against the black of his hair, of his shirt, of the pants that wrapped about his legs like reforged skin and the boots laced up to his knees. Keith hadn’t liked how low the shirt had cut at first, the way it exposed his chest, but when the dog tags had been slipped on, they nestled against his skin and somehow made him feel a little more at home. Black had made everything else stand-out: the red, the silver clinking against his chest, the blue-grey of his eyes that always burned violet beneath the stage lighting.

The smile on his lips breaks for a small laugh. Keith’s gaze focuses on the shadow moving behind him in the mirror, as familiar to him as his own soul. He’s walking over to him, the owner of that shadow, a larger presence than himself and yet never once had it drowned out Keith’s existence. Quite the opposite. He had never felt more alive, more himself than with that someone.

His someone.

_I’m so sorry, Keith. . ._

He opens his eyes, and the memory is gone. Before him, just a poster promising one of the greatest performances of his life and a Bayard as heavy as the world in his hands. His mouth pulls to a faint smile, powerless in the face of heartbreak.

_They took your voice. . .I couldn’t stop them._

His eyes trace the lines of red over the poster. Keith shakes his head and tightens his grip over the Bayard. He had woken up, unable to scream, to cry, to tell the world of his loss and his pain. Stripped of the one thing that had given him power. The polls had elevated him from a mere stunt performer to a warrior of the stage. 

They couldn’t save him now. 

But Keith could still save himself. . .and to do that, he had to find out what had happened last night, and why. . .why. . .

_We have something of theirs now too._

That voice, echoing all around him, inside of him, buries its guilt under anger and calls forth resolve. His fingers curl in tight again, refusing to let go of the Bayard. That’s their message. 

He won’t let go.

The poster calls his gaze to it once more. Motionless. Immutable. A picture of everything that could have been. Should have been. Keith lingers there, but he doesn’t know why. There’s no answer in this image of him, no going back to it either. But it takes time to say goodbye. . .and he’s never been very good with those.

_C’mon, Keith. We’ve got more to do. So, let’s just. . .we’ll figure it out, okay? I’m not going anywhere. At least, not yet._

He narrows his eyes down at the Bayard, only to get a faint chuckle in return.

_I got it. We’ll keep fighting together then. . ._

That’s exactly right. They’ll keep pressing forward, keep fighting whatever it is that’s trying to break them, and this world, apart. Keith knows this, just as he still hears the lament in those words for not being enough when Keith needed it the most. At least, that’s the feeling he gets. He’s never once thought that himself, though. There had been moments in his life, built around this soul as solid as his heart’s foundation, and without them, his life would have been a lot different. Maybe there is blame to be placed, but it’s not here. He gives the Bayard a wistful smile, absolving it of any guilt, then turns his back on the images of a life lost to him.

Moving into the next area is all it takes to earn another barrier around them. Keith surveys the square, recognizing it as part of the Naxzela district. Home of Altea’s underground nightlife, complete with cafes known for their winding staircases that lend you further down until a room below opened up for bars, seating, and spaces for dancing. Then there was the city’s heralded and newly christened subterranean art exhibit, carved out of old waterways, and now showcasing the latest metalwork from Altea’s artist of the moment, Lance. 

Simply Lance. 

Keith remembers rolling his eyes at the news report, wherein the statement _It’s what all the greats do, you know. The one name. Gotta make it iconic, right?_ had so grated on him that it had taken a hand to his shoulder and a whisper of _patience_ against his ear to draw him out of his irritation from it all.

Naxzela hadn’t been his stomping ground, but he knew it well enough. Just as he knows what's coming, though he can’t see it quite yet. But the creature is there. He feels it like that crackle of electricity in the air after a lightning strike.

_A drone?!_

Out of place, the thing now standing before him is indeed a drone. Another one of Altea’s robotic curators, suited up like medieval knights and given the menial tasks of ticket-taking at shows, receiving orders at the stand-alone kiosks selling whatever flavored lattes and sodas were in fashion, and keeping the city streets pristine. One would never find so much as a flower out of place or a street lamp dimmed thanks to their efforts. Why this one was here now instead of at its programmed post escapes Keith, but just as with the Rover, it focuses its attention on him. As if he is the thing out of place, needing to be pruned or simply. . .erased.

_Pidge says there’s something wrong with it._

Keith throws a withering glare down at the Bayard, which has shifted once more to its sword form.

_Obvious. I know. But she says maybe if we can get close enough. . .if I can touch it somehow, she might be able to find some way to overwrite its code._

So, get in close but not close enough to let it eradicate him. Sounds easy enough. If by easy, one means death-defying, which is always its own sort of soul-shearing experience if you ask him. It makes him grateful for his previous life, the one before his vocal talents had been scouted and polished for the masses. When he had simply reveled in the fights, staged as most were, and the adrenaline always coursed through his body when one feat was set before him, just to test the limits of his body.

Back when he had met. . .

_Incoming!_

Keith dodges at the last minute, swinging himself around the drone and its sword, a blade of purple light, as ominous as the windows had been. More likely to end him though. He ducks behind a cluster of crystals, newly erupted and emitting that same eerie light as the blade, and counts his breaths. On the other side of it, he can hear the drone’s heavy footfalls, metal clacking against the black stones of the walkway. The red glow emitted from its visor glances off the crystal structure to his left as it starts to round the one he had hidden behind. Tapping his finger against his thigh, he counts again, and on the fifth beat, he launches himself from his hiding place and sends the Bayard’s blade glancing against the drone’s thigh. 

_Pidge says that was perfect! Now, just try and buy her some time. . ._

What a novel notion. Buying time. The only thing that bought time was more time, yours or someone else’s. It’s a rather absurd notion, and that it occurs to him now of all moments seems oddly appropriate. Why not now when he’s facing off against one of the supposed cleaners of the city, tasked with its upkeep and whims? Maybe this is a rebellion in motion. Maybe he’s the unfortunate one left. Maybe -

_You’re going to have to destroy it, Keith. Whatever is causing it to go rogue can’t be fixed. Pidge says it’s like a living code, constantly combatting her efforts._

So, it won’t go down without a fight. He can understand that much. The next time they collide, Keith cleaves through its torso and watches as, seconds later, it breaks apart into a dozen different crystal shards, each one turning just as black as humanity’s bleakest thoughts. No different from the Rovers before it. 

As the Bayard shifts its form again, the blade dissipating in a flourish of lavender light, Keith exhales.

_There’s something causing this. It’s reprogramming the city. . ._

And his life, Keith thinks wryly. It’s already rewritten the better part of it, or maybe this is just how the remnants managed to salvage themselves from complete deletion. When he looks down at the Bayard, his heart swells with pain, and he stifles the sob that had come up far too sudden for him to swallow down completely. 

He jerks his head several times, back and forth, as if to confirm that he heard, that he understood, for as much understanding he could take from his current situation. And at the end of it all, Keith knows the only thing he can do is press forward. 

The Naxzela district ends in a weaving of tunnels that travels beneath the water channels of the city proper. He’s almost finished navigating them when he spots something near the exit, the one that brings him up near the overpass. There’s a rental station there, for those needing quick transport and wanting to take on the drive themselves rather than leave it to the automated vehicles of the city. That had been the one thought creeping around in his head - how to travel through the city, get to where he needed to go, and get there fast. 

But before he can get there, the Bayard lights up, purple illuminating the dark stone walls of the underground passage, as it greets the body. Even here, though, Altea had left nothing of its aesthetic behind; it still offered its blue lights, like the distant calls of stars guiding you to the places that will take you higher, and its perfectly polished black stones leading the way.

_Hey, Lance. Are you in there?_

A twinge pricks at his gut, as unnerving as the sensation of snakes uncoiling themselves, one after the other, from a crevice overflowing with them. When Keith finally pulls to a halt beside the figure, the line of his mouth wavers, corners dipping down until he drops his gaze completely.

_It’s him all right, but I can barely hear him._

Keith had always seen Lance as someone looking to push the limits as though he was trying to define himself by them. Or maybe just trying to define himself in general. Always talking, always schmoozing, always going and yet never getting much of anywhere. The ol’ Razzle Dazzle, Lance had called it. It didn’t stop the world from loving him. Keith never quite got it. . .but he hadn’t disliked the guy.

And he certainly didn’t deserve this. Whatever it is. Like Pidge, Lance elects to join up with them. He still doesn’t understand how it all works (as though bodies could be broken down into the lines of a story, decoded and reformatted for another purpose), but if it gives voice to the now voiceless, he somehow feels it part of his duty to carry them. With a little help. He gives one last look behind him, then moves up the flight of stairs at the end of the tunnel and on to the next section of the city.

Ever forward. There’s no other way in this.

Only that’s when everything stops. Just like that, with one resounding BANG! (Always a bang, whether the start of a universe or the dissolution of everything you thought you knew.) All around him the world has gone white, buildings half-erased, windows floating in the void and blaring ultraviolet accusations. Keith looks all around the square, bewildered by the nothingness eating away at the flooring. To his right, the circular rose gold insignia of Altea inlaid over the floor, now smudged like a black-ink signature left at the mercy of the rain. And parading around the area, a large juggernaut of a beast (robot, beast - robeast. . .is that what they really were?), with three-pronged pistons for fists and a single vermilion eye flaring out from its abdomen. A machine fit for obliteration.

_C’mon then big guy. We’ve got this, Keith._

Keith recognizes it. Or rather, what it had once been. The creature is like some distorted dream, pieces of reality spliced together from the dredges of nightmares. Prorok had been one of Altea’s builders. The people voted; Prorok along with an army of other machines enacted upon those desires. They would turn those whims tangible overnight. What Keith sees before him though is only a whisper of that machine. The bulk of its body, sturdy enough to transport loads across districts without dropping them, the dexterous fingers capable of crushing and vacuuming up the dust of stone and metal alike. 

What he sees is destruction unmitigated by creation. It’s as if Prorok is tearing the city apart, indiscriminately. And Keith is apart of what must be destroyed.

_You good?_

He nods, feeling the weight of the Bayard’s sword form in his hand.

_Then, go get him! I’m right here with you._

There’s a challenge in that voice like the Bayard had had a body of its own once to go along with its will, like there’s nothing in this world that would have kept him from Keith’s side in this fight. It spills courage into his veins, breathes new life into his lungs, and as he darts around the plaza, he breaks the robotic creature down, bit by bit, until there’s nothing but a splattering of crystals left across the ground. 

Keith swings a glance around the area, chest heaving, and feels something deflate inside of him. The energy of it all, maybe. Or just grief catching up to him. He looks down at the Bayard, at the faint lavender glow outlining the black. No longer a sword. Just. . .something bearable. 

Something that, at this moment, is utterly irreplaceable. 

Breath barely caught, his attention is drawn to the center of the plaza as an OKI terminal rises from the ground, its pillar glowing a clean fresh-air sort of blue. He makes his way over to it, fingers glossing across the panel until an image pops up.

His.

_I guess you weren’t as inescapable as we thought. You’re more than just a name to them now, Keith._

He had been heralded as one of Altea’s finest rising artists, but it had never been about that. What he writes, what he sings. . .all of that is simply doing what he loves. All of it coming about because of something. . .someone he. . . 

It had never been anything more than that, but the citizens of Altea elevated him like some note-forging god. Beyond just the accolades, his songs sent a fervor sweeping through them. Until. . .until. . .he had never intended any of this. Maybe it couldn’t have been helped. To live in the pursuit of love or to merely wither away without its grace. He had tried to get away from it all, but trouble is like a starving wolf, always hounding him. 

And then the Galra started to notice. Perhaps this is their way of reminding him of that. Showing him what they know, what they believe about him. How he had become an inescapable part of this. 

Whatever _this_ is.

Keith closes the file, and with it, the terminal retracts back into the ground, no more than a glowing tile amidst the chewed-up ruins of a plaza he had once known.

Moving forward, right?

_That’s our way out. . ._

Keith enters the next area through a small tunnel. Surprisingly still intact given the devastation of the plaza that led into it. It’s the rental station he had been looking for. The one that sits just before the east sixty-four on-ramp. 

Unlike the last section of the city, this one still pulses with life. Its floors glisten a deep blue, as though someone had found a way to encase the midday sky in ice. Each inch reflects the buildings rising all around it, small details replicated in perfect mimicry then distorted with every step he takes. Set at even intervals are tall street lamps, built to mimic trees with perfect square light-cases cradled by several small branches and emitting a soft green glow.

It’s the Altea Keith is familiar with, and a welcomed sight. But he knows it’s only a matter of time before things change here too, and he has every intention of changing a few things himself. He turns towards the motorcycles parked in the far corner. There’s one set apart from the rest, a vivid soul-charging red coloring its body. That’s the one Keith helps himself to (an easy choice to make, honestly, though he doesn’t give the small huff of laughter from the Bayard any more attention than a brief glance and a roll of his eyes). It’s a quick straddle. Almost feels a bit like home, honestly.

_. . .about five blocks down. . ._

The engine revs at his touch. Keith can’t help but smirk at that, his face turned towards the Bayard as he secures it to the bike. With everything in place, he navigates them out of the rest area and onto the highway.

_. . .take the second right. Do not turn left._

Keith hears the warning in that last statement. More of a command that wants to be but the Bayard has already realized there’s little it can do to enforce its words. Still, it’s trying. **He** is trying. The smirk that curves Keith’s mouth then is entirely humorless in its making.

_And, Keith?_

He tips his head towards the Bayard, to indicate that he’s listening. 

Actively listening.

_. . .thanks for the lift._

If laughter weren’t a futile thing, Keith would have belted out with it. Instead, he starts smiling, giving his head a small shake in the process. To think he’d be taking directions and accepting gratitude from a weapon aware of its own being. But maybe this city is just the sort of place for such a thing. After all, anything had seemed possible here. Once. Funny how that seems like another life, even as Keith feels himself firmly rooted to it at this moment. They are here, and that much is undeniable.

Even so, this city, his life. . .it’s all taken a hard turn into unknown territory.

The ramp shoots them high above the intersecting streets of the city. All around him Altea passes by, its buildings drifting out of the cloud-cover like monsters materializing from a dream, their windows glowing preternatural purples and haunted reds. A look spared in any direction brings to light more areas being eaten away by this. . . Keith still doesn’t know. Quintessence? Or was it hardwiring on the fritz, causing the city’s mechanical maintenance teams to rebel? 

As they pass, however, it appears as though the majority of Altea is still intact. Just odd pockets of white where colors should be, bereft of life and light. So, the city overall is still kicking, Keith can presume. But for how long? That remains debatable. He hopes he’ll find the answers sooner rather than later (too late maybe). Answers about those things devouring the city and its citizens, about the Bayard. . .and his losses.

About all of it really.

_Hey. . .you turned left._

Astute as always. And yet, so heartbreakingly soft in its sound. Keith’s heart pounds one painful beat in response to those words. No, more to the way that voice carried them than the words themselves. He can almost imagine the look that might have accompanied such a statement.

One of fondness touched with a bit of exasperation. But still completely in love with him. All of him, even those faults and flaws that drew such a sound, such a look.

_I thought we were going to skip town._

Keith shakes his head again, this one solid in the way that set-minds and steeled-hearts can lend heaviness to the gesture.

_We’re going back there? You met these things, Keith. They’re like nothing else we’ve ever encountered. And it’s not just about Altea. They will track you down, wipe you out, and take whatever is left of me back to the very people who did this to us._

Anger sweeps through the Bayard’s voice, sparking up the night with its lavender light, and Keith feels it like a hot coal closed up inside of his heart. Because he gets it. . .he does. It’s that same fear creeping around in his chest, wrapping itself around his nerves and infiltrating his thoughts the same way ivy consumes a brick wall. But, this isn’t how the story ends for them. That’s all he can think.

This isn’t for them, the ones who did this. It’s for the one he might get back. 

_. . .look. Whatever you’re thinking, Keith, just do me a favor. . .don’t let me go._

The smile that sweeps over Keith’s lips then is full of melancholic understanding. That’s the last thing he wants to do - let go. He leans forward, the bike surging through the night as silence resignedly closes in over the Bayard. It echoes in his head though. The longing, the all-too human need to be here with him. The way loss infiltrated its tone, along with the fear of losing what was left. Keith’s hand closes in over the throttle. 

He had never had any intention of letting go.


End file.
